4 - Non-Jewish Israeli Nationalism and the Limits of Israeliness

Summary

Chapter 4 picks up where the previous chapter ends the (failed) option of constructing non-Jewish Israeliness as a solution to this Jewish identity problem. This, again, is done by a reconstruction and deconstruction of a public debate – and publicly available texts. The roots of this anti-Jewish Israeli stance are quite old in terms of Zionist history (Yadgar correctly traces it back to the “Young Hebrews”). Yadgar shows the very shallow and limited sense in which this stance (mis)understands Judaism. He shows it to be based on an anti-Semitic view of Judaism as anti-humanist, primitive and benighted (this is most clearly apparent in the writing of Uzi Ornan, who figures prominently in this debate and in the chapter as a whole). Even more interestingly, Yadgar exposes the Israeli left’s (this stance, again, is a case of a unidimensional identification of Judaism with the right) inability to engage productively with its Jewish history. There is no doubt that (as Yadgar insists) the anti-Jewish Israeli stance is a minority position among Israelis, especially Israeli Jews. Just like its predecessor (anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist “Hebrew” nationalism), it is extremely useful in forcing the logical inconsistencies of the Israeli and Jewish claim to Jewish identity to come to the fore.